Disclosing Bias as a Hispanic Man

One of the hardest things I’ve had to face as a Hispanic man is my own bias.

Not the kind I hold toward others… but the one that quietly lives inside me.

The one that says:

“I’m right.”

“I don’t need to apologize.”

“She just doesn’t understand how I think.”

That stubbornness — terquedad — runs deep in many of us.

It’s how we learned to survive, to hold our ground, to not be broken by a world that demanded we prove ourselves twice as hard.

But that same terquedad, when left unchecked, can close our hearts… and hurt the people we love most.

And, it hides other emotions that need to be understood.

I’ve had moments when I’ve hurt my wife, my son, or someone close, not out of cruelty, but out of other emotions that exposed my vulnerability, but hid under stubbornness.

Moments when silence spoke louder than words,

when the need to appear strong kept me from being real.

Because the truth is we were never taught to feel.

As Hispanic men, navigating our emotions wasn’t part of growing up.

Not in childhood.

Not in adolescence.

Not even as adults.

We were taught to work hard, to provide, to protect, but rarely to understand what was happening inside of us.

To clothe it under stubbornness, under terquedad.

And yet, when I finally say, “Sí, I was stubborn. I was wrong,” something shifts.

A quiet clarity returns.

It doesn’t make me less of a man.

It makes me more human.

And it opens the door to understanding the real emotions to be processed and understood.

To move forward.

That’s what I now offer through Coaching Partnerships for Men —

a space to explore what’s been undisclosed for too long.

To name what we feel.

To understand it.

To meet ourselves with

understanding instead of judgment.

Because when we begin to understand our emotions,

we begin to understand our lives,

and that changes everything.

Y eso cambia todo.

(Pictured are Pedro Infante and Gael García Bernal, in the iconic movies, Tizoc, Nosotros Los Pobres, and Babel, with their co-stars María Felíx and Blanca Estela Pavón.)

Learn more about my work: myautenticoself.com